New Jersey needs new campaign contribution limits: Opinion

With an abundance of campaign funds, wheeling of money has become a fine art in New Jersey.

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By William Schluter

On Sept. 1, The Star-Ledger carried an op-ed by Jeff Brindle, the very capable executive director of the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, who wrote about a case coming before the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw aggregate limits for campaign contributions. At present, any group or individual is limited to contributing no more than $128,000 to all federal political committees and candidates over a two-year election cycle.

Some states, including Maryland and Connecticut, also limit the aggregate amount of campaign contributions. Brindle favors the removal of aggregate limits, which he believes would allow more money subject to full disclosure to flow into campaigns and away from independent expenditures, thereby giving political parties more control.

There is already an extremely large amount of money being spent directly on New Jersey campaigns by wealthy special interests. This is because of our inordinately high contribution limits for “super” political committees, which can give unlimited amounts to other committees and campaigns.

Now, any donor is allowed to give up to $37,000 per year to a county political committee and $25,000 to each of the four legislative leadership PACs, as well as the two state party committees. This means that if an individual with very deep pockets wants to try to “buy” a political party in this state, this person can legally give as much as $852,000 per year to his or her party (21 counties at $37,000 and three committees at $25,000). And this doesn’t even count the thousands a donor can give directly to all candidates.

Recent experience has shown that the politically connected super-rich have spent excessively in New Jersey and these expenditures have basically been outside of party structure. George Norcross, the unelected South Jersey political powerhouse, has collected and channeled thousands in campaign funds to influence and determine election outcomes.

Former Gov. Jon Corzine was a campaign ATM, personally contributing almost $5.5 million to his party’s organizations from 1999 to 2008. He also gave $837,000 to Norcross’s First Jersey Committee in 2001. Corzine spent $1.45 million in the “wheeling pool” of Democratic organizations while governor from 2006 to 2010.

Ill-fated political rainmaker Charles Kushner raised $85,000 in one day in maximum individual contributions from 41 real estate partners for gubernatorial hopeful Jim McGreevey. Overall, he supplied $1.5 million for McGreevey’s benefit between 1997 and 2002.

Former Senate President Donald DiFrancesco donated $60,000 in 2000 from his leadership PAC to the Burlington County GOP, which then turned around and unanimously endorsed him for the following year’s gubernatorial contest.

With an abundance of campaign funds, wheeling of money between counties to targeted contests has become a fine art in New Jersey. The most notorious example of how wheeling determines election outcomes occurred in the Bergen County executive race in 2002.

Of the $4 million spent on the Democrat’s winning campaign, there was a $3 million infusion of wheeled funds in a final month stealth attack. Norcross arranged to send almost $500,000 directly to Bergen and another $960,000 to other county parties, which kicked into the Bergen campaign. John Lynch’s Middlesex County machine contributed $377,000 to Bergen and $620,000 to other party organizations, which channeled the money to Bergen. And Corzine made contributions of $212,000 to county units that helped out in Bergen.

New Jersey’s laws, with overly generous contribution limits and permissible wheeling, show how powerful political entrepreneurs can influence elections to their own ends. Money is distorting the political system. The imposition of aggregate limits and restrictions on wheeling will do much to reform how campaign money is raised and spent in the state.

The problems presented by rapidly growing independent spending as a result of the Citizens United decision can be addressed separately by requiring comprehensive disclosure on all independent expenditures. And pressure should be exerted on Congress to attempt to modify or reverse the Supreme Court’s decision.

William Schluter of Pennington is a former state senator and and chairman of the state ethics commission, and author of the New Jersey Campaign Contribution and Expenditure Reporting Act.